As Britain formally fired the starting gun on its exit from the European Union, David Cameron has defended his decision to call the referendum that ended in the vote to leave.

“I thought it right to hold the referendum because this issue had been poisoning British politics for years. The referendum had been promised and not held,” the former British prime minister said during a visit to Ukraine on Wednesday, in quotes reported by Agence France-Presse.

Mark and Scott Kelly are the only twins that have ever traveled to space — and their experience will be invaluable if we want to get to Mars one day.

The brothers are taking part in what NASA calls the Twins Study — a genetic experiment to see how our bodies change in zero gravity in the long term. That’s important to understand before we put humans on a spaceship and send them on a round trip to the Red Planet.

As this past week’s battle over health care proves, the great divide in American politics shows no sign of healing, or even of quieting down. Our Cover Story is reported by “Sunday Morning” Senior Contributor Ted Koppel:

Increasingly, we Americans occupy alternate universes.

President Trump: “To be honest, I inherited a mess! It’s a mess!”

Stephen Colbert: “No, you inherited a fortune; we elected a mess.”

There is very little common ground left … only battling perceptions of reality.

]]>http://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2017/03/27/the-great-divide-politics-in-the-age-of-trump-cbs-news/feed/0Dennis Ross in the New York Timeshttp://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2015/10/21/dennis-ross-in-the-new-york-times/
http://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2015/10/21/dennis-ross-in-the-new-york-times/#commentsWed, 21 Oct 2015 01:12:17 +0000dalefisher@gmail.comhttp://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/?p=1202

Dennis B. Ross, the former Middle East adviser to President Obama, faults Susan E. Rice, the president’s national security adviser, for exacerbating tensions with Israel during the talks that led up to the recent nuclear accord with Iran and quotes her casting the dispute in racial overtones.

Recent days have witnessed a number of attempts to grapple valiantly with the threat posed by ISIS and radical Islam. Graeme Wood in The Atlantic and Damon Linker in The Week are among those who are now confronting the theological arguments that inspire radical Islamic fighters and groups such as ISIS.

Even as writers and public intellectuals explore the theological factors pertaining to Islamist violence, however, the U.S. Administration has conspicuously avoided any discussion of Islamic theology, even avoiding use of the term “radical Islam” altogether. The White House this week held a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism” (a rather nebulous concept) while intentionally avoiding use of the term 'radical Islam.'

To watch all 23 of Ken Burns’ award-winning documentaries end to end would take 8,147 minutes — that comes out to about 136 hours or 5.5 straight days. As much as the documentarian would love you to try this — and as much as this sounds like a fun, albeit ambitious, challenge in theory — Burns knows that while he’s happily given 30-plus years to the telling of American history, not all of us have the same amount of time and patience to devote to the topic.

Conveniently, that problem has been solved. Today, in collaboration with digital agency Big Spaceship, Burns and producer Don MacKinnon are launching an iPad app that curates those 8,147 minutes into easily-digestible “mixtapes.” The hour-long playlists of bite-size clips from across Burns’ 23-piece oeuvre explore six overarching themes in American history – innovation, race, politics, art, hard times, and war – and bring his films into a digital, multidimensional context for the first time.

View the full article at Wired.com
]]>http://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2014/11/14/ken-burns-new-ipad-app-turns-u-s-history-into-beautiful-mixtapes/feed/0Hillary Clinton and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced $600 million in funding for global educationhttp://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2014/09/29/hillary-clinton-and-former-australian-prime-minister-julia-gillard-announced-600-million-in-funding-for-global-education/
http://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/2014/09/29/hillary-clinton-and-former-australian-prime-minister-julia-gillard-announced-600-million-in-funding-for-global-education/#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 23:21:17 +0000dalefisher@gmail.comhttp://www.baltimorespeakersseries.org/?p=1014

On Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton and Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a new Clinton Global Initiative commitment with the Center on Universal Education at the Brookings Institution for girls’ education called CHARGE (The Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls Education). The initiative will include 30 other partners, including governments like the United States and organizations from the private sector, committing $600 million to reach 14 million girls around the world in the next five years.

David McCullough is going to need a larger trophy case. Adding to his Presidential Medal of Freedom, two Pulitzer Prizes, and two National Book Awards, the celebrated historian was inducted Monday into the French Légion d’Honneur by Boston’s Consul General of France.